Oh my gosh - how dirty is Kolkata???

  Kolkata (Calcutta), West Bengal, India Saturday, September 13, 2014

The day Jody has been dreading is finally here. Kolkata! Or Calcutta as the BBC still seem to insist on calling it! Dreading it because it is rumoured to be the dirtiest city in India and the not so dirty ones are bad enough! We arrive by train late morning and the station very much reminded us of our arrival in Mumbai by train 3 years ago. It felt all nostalgic. First job was to find a taxi to our hotel. It was a bit confusing as they use a ore-pay system here and you pay at the ticket booth then take the ticket to the first taxi in the queue and they take you where it says on the ticketWell that's the plan but they didn't know where we were going - so they said - so we had to find a rogue driver in a rickety old banger! Our hotel is beautiful. And it stands out like a sore thumb as it's in a fairly non-descript part of town where regular Kolkatans live and work. We took advantage of the very hot powerful showers here as soon as we got to our room. Wash all that train off us. We also had a bit of a snooze first as neither of us had slept very well on the train either. We decide to go for a walk to find a restaurant to get some dinner the first evening but there was nothing anywhere. We ended up following a lead on Trip Advisor for "near me now" and it took us down some very dark and dingy alleyways and it wasn't long before we back tracked and got out of there fast! Something which happened to us which was very funny happened when we were just nearing the hotel and a man about 50 years old, jumped out in front of Jody and demanded "photo"He was very serious about it so with nothing to lose, Jody did. Then she showed him the photo she had taken and that was when the magic happened. His whole face lit up, he smiled the biggest smile and started laughing and dancing in the street. It made everyone else smile too and instead of deleting the photo after as she had thought she would, Jody has kept it to remind us of that moment. One thing everyone must do in Kolkata is visit Mother Teresa's house. Neither of us are religious but she was a very special lady and we had to find out more about her. We grabbed a rickshaw each (the type pulled by a man) and we were racing across the side streets to get there before it shut. We were racing but it's fair to say the rickshaw men probably didn't realise we were and probably didn't care as they were both over 65 and one probably 10 years older than that. We are always in a quandary about things like this. On one hand we think it's not right that such old people (65 may not be old in England but if you have lived your life on the streets of Kolkata then you may think a bit differently) have to work so hard and for just a few pence to pull us aroundBut on the other hand, if they didn't, they wouldn't earn any money at all and wouldn't eat. There is no pension for most people in India so you have to continue to support yourself all your life unless your family will. At least pulling a rickshaw is an honest income but it still felt a bit mean to have them pulling us around. Anyway, we booked taxi tour for Monday and we set off to see The sights of the city. We saw bridges as we crossed over them and weaved our way towards the Victoria Memorial which is the number one attraction here. Except on Monday when everything is closed apparently!. So we set off instead to the Botanical Gardens where they have the worlds largest tree (branch area). It is a banyan tree spreading out over 4 acres and is 1250 years old. We were quite keen to see this too so weaved our way back to the opposite side of the river again and guess what. Yep. Closed on Mondays. Arrgghh!! It had taken 6 ours in the taxi to see nothing! Back at our hotel we complained and we did get our money back but it had felt like a completely wasted day. We had stayed at the Jameson hotel for two nights but as always we have to think of the budget and we needed to move to somewhere cheaperThe Jameson had cost £40 a night but our next stop Hotel Galaxy right in the centre of the backpacker area was only going to be £9 a night. We were expecting a huge comedown but actually (if you ignored the street toilets you had to pass to get to it) it really wasn't so bad. Run by a lovely Sikh man named Hari, the room was large, had AC and best of all - hot water. Admittedly it was only a 8 squirt shower head but hot water none-the-less. We were keen to book a trip to the Sundarbans as we had seen these tours advertised and it was tempting us so we found Back Packer Tours and they were really helpful and much cheaper than all of the others we had seen. We were going to be staying in mud huts in an Eco Village. Can't wait to see what that's like! The area we are staying in now is called New Market. There is a big old Victorian building which serves as the covered market. Not very new being victorian but still new enough not to be the old market we suppose! It is a great backpacker area which in simple terms means there are facilities for travellers here. eg laundry services, cafes with wifi and menus that serve food from back homeOur favourite place here is Blue Sky Cafe. A couple of times we have dived in here and ordered fried egg & chips. They make proper hand made chips from real potatoes. Yum! We eventually made it over to the Victoria Memorial on a wednesday so it was open. This place seems to be the only place in Kolkata which is clean and well looked after with manicured lawns and well groomed gardens. Our friend Andy had sent us a challenge to try and replicate an old photo from 1856 (or there abouts). So after a bit of running around we came to a dead end as the area pictured had been totally rebuilt and none of the things existed anymore. But we did speak to Hari about it and he remembers the statue from when he first moved to Kolkata 50 years ago! shame but nice one Andy - we enjoyed the challenge. From here we are going on our fabulous trip to the Andaman Islands so it will be great to get onto a beautiful beach and into the ocean. You can read about that later. Hari was kind enough to keep a box of "stuff" for us whilst we went to the Andamans as we had to keep our baggage weight downWhen we returned to pick it up we popped into Blue Sky again for egg & chips and we were greeted like long lost friends. They even remembered how Jody liked her tea. Now that's customer service! Kolkata didn't really appeal to us and we have to say we were glad to leave but once we had found the back packer area it did get better for us. We will never miss this place though or the smell of the public toilet as we had to pass it each day, but we have to say, we shall miss Blue Sky Cafe and the lovely people in it :-) [gallery columns="4" ids="8392,8396,8402,8404,8407,8409,8411,8412,8416,8420,8422,8428,8431,8437,8443,8449,8459,8463,8470,8474,8480,8490,8498,8502,8511,8524,8530,8541,8548,8555,8567,8581,8589,8606,8613,8625,8636,8645,8658,8666,8673,8681,8692,8700"]